Building a home? Understanding the Design Build Process with Eddie Rider

Designer Spotlight – Eddie Rider

Based in North Carolina, Eddie Rider of Eddie Rider Designs, has spent more than 20 years curating various residential projects in scale and involvement. As a luxury residential designer, Eddie, strongly believes great designs, whether personal spaces or custom residential properties, begin with a comprehensive understanding of clients’ needs and expectations. Skilled at creating beautiful designs under a variety of budgets, styles, timeframes, and requirements, Eddie guides his clients through every phase of the design build process. His passion for design is demonstrated with beautiful and stunning homes produced by his partnerships with custom builders, Dogwood & Company in Cary and Mark Johnson Custom Homes in Wilmington. Currently, Eddie is actively involved in eight luxury custom home projects as the design lead.

Photo Credit: G. Frank Hart Photography

Building a home? Understanding the Design Build Process with Eddie Rider

I’m a huge advocate of educating people on the design build process who are considering building their home. It’s no small endeavor as it does require finite attention to detail. One misstep can be costly both in time and money. The same considerations can also apply to remodeling spaces in your current home. Here’s what you need to know:

Building a home from the ground up requires a lot of trust in the relationship you have with your builder and design team. Once you have found your perfect location to build your home, do your research on the builder or find the builder that works for you. Ask your neighbors! Cheaper is not always better. Not all builders are the same. In the same context, ask your builder if an in-house designer is included in the build process. If not, consider hiring a turnkey residential design specialist who knows both build design and interior design for managing expectations and ensuring requirements are met.

Builders often refer to custom building a home as a design build process. So, what does that mean? It is exactly that, a process by which all parties including the builder, designer, and the client are unified under one project. It is intended to offer clear communication with transparency of every aspect of the home build project. There are many things to consider in the design build process from budgetary allowances, architectural planning to exterior and interior selections and finishes.

A key component to building a custom home – planning. In today’s current market where I provide services, a custom-built home takes 14-18 months on average from conception to completion. The more planning you do on the front end, the less likely you will run into major speed bumps along the way. The three most important planning aspects of the design build process is 1) pre-construction 2) allowances 3) selections and finishes. The most time-consuming portion of your build project is pre-construction planning where you will spend a large portion working with the architect on developing your floorplan. Another consideration to planning is understanding your allowances. Your allowances are budget considerations for items like foundations, basements, framing, kitchen cabinets, lighting, flooring, and countertops. Your builder will provide you with an allowance spreadsheet that breaks down direct costs for each item. Allowances gives you visibility of where your money goes and affords you the most flexibility to adjust allowances in certain areas of the build process. In particular, selections and finishes can either make or break a budget. Be conscientious of your budget considerations in this area. Make sure your design specialist is clear on your expectations of your vision and budget.

Let’s talk about selections and finishes. It’s my favorite part of the entire design build process. Selections and finishes create design elements of a home, statement pieces, that can be dramatic, elegant, timeless, modern, trendy but more importantly scalable. Design elements can be scaled based on budget, preference, and intent. Your design specialist will guide you based on your vision for each space of the home. Just as important, go to your local vendors showrooms. Plan on spending time at each showroom and possibly revisiting the different vendors based on changes during the build process. I normally plan the selections process by starting first at the tile and flooring stores. Once we make the tile and flooring selections, the next stop is to the stone showroom like the one at Francini’s. Pro-tip: It’s easier to carry a few tile or flooring selections than big slabs of marble or granite. At Francini’s distribution center, walk through the isles with your other selections to determine what type of countertop and variation you think will best suite your design style and intent. As a designer, I’m always interested in new trends in the design industry. Book matching is a new innovative way to curate a statement piece effect for a strong architectural detail throughout your home. This technique is wonderful when creating bold or seamless statement pieces. Check out the video below:

Building a home is an incredible experience. Having a design build team who advocates for your needs is important. Research, planning, and investing your time and money is the key to a successful build! To learn more information about the design build process with Eddie, visit Eddie Rider’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/EddieRiderDesigns/videos.

If you're interested in building a custom home or working on updating your current home, contact Eddie at Eddie Rider Design. Visit his site at EddieRiderDesigns.com or email him directly at Eddie@EddieRiderDesigns.com.